Public universities, colleges and their partners are driving unprecedented growth and development in the state
Higher education alliances are
key to Illinois’ economic engine
executive insights
Published on Feb. 17, 2025
Sponsored by University of Illinois System
Illinois is entering an era of tremendous potential for economic growth, innovation and entrepreneurship. Collaboration between higher education, industry and government is critical to not just driving — but turbocharging — the engine of economic development in the state.
That’s the consensus from a panel of higher education and business leaders who came together recently for a roundtable discussion hosted by the University of Illinois System and Crain’s Content Studio. The group of key players, instrumental in shaping the state’s current trajectory, spoke of their intentional approach to harnessing their respective agendas toward a common goal: to build on the momentum of recent economic wins for the state.
“The mission of economic development, growth and social progress is in our bones,” said U of I System President Tim Killeen. “Our university system has a legacy of tech innovation and graduates who went on to change tech history. Now it’s time to turbocharge all that — particularly with advancing tech platforms — with the human capital we have at scale. We need to quickly and intentionally connect the wealth generation to this human prosperity, and do so without leaving communities behind.”
By Seka Palikuca | Crain’s Content Studio
Crain’s Content Studio and the University of Illinois System recently convened a roundtable of leaders in public higher education and economic development for a panel discussion on the role of the state’s universities and colleges in driving business growth and innovation. Moderated by Crain’s Chicago Business Executive Editor and Publisher Jim Kirk, the two-hour conversation has been collected and summarized here.
Betsy Ziegler
Elizabeth “Betsy” Ziegler is the CEO of 1871, the world’s #1 private incubator, supporting entrepreneurs and innovators to transform their ideas into impactful businesses that drive job growth and tackle critical global challenges. Previously, she was chief innovation officer and associate dean at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and a principal at McKinsey & Company. Ziegler serves on multiple for-profit and nonprofit boards and invests in emerging tech ventures. Ziegler earned her bachelor’s in economics from The Ohio State University and her MBA from Harvard Business School.
Meet the panelists
Mark Tebbe
Mark Tebbe is an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and an Entrepreneur-in-Residence in Booth’s Polsky Center, where he mentors students and advises faculty in developing technological business techniques. Outside of the classroom, he serves as chairman of World Business Chicago’s Innovation and Venture Strategy Council, a dedicated public-private effort to improve the city’s economic development as well as national and world competitiveness in science, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship. Tebbe earned his bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Brad Henderson
Brad Henderson is the founding CEO of P33, where he leads global technology leadership for Chicago and inclusive economic growth for all. With over 20 years of experience, he brings deep expertise in unlocking opportunities for businesses and individuals. Previously, Brad was a senior partner at Boston Consulting Group, where he led North American Operations. He is a Rhodes Scholar and holds degrees from the University of Chicago and Oxford. Brad actively supports Chicago’s community, education and innovation through numerous leadership and advisory roles.
Christy George
Christy George is the president and CEO of Intersect Illinois, a public-private partnership focused on global business development for the state. Previously, she served as Executive Director of the Chicago 2024 Host Committee for the Democratic National Convention. Additional experience includes serving as First Assistant Deputy Governor for Budget & Economy under Governor JB Pritzker, as the Executive Director of the Illinois Commerce Commission, and in several roles at the City of Chicago, including Deputy Budget Director for Public Safety. George obtained her J.D. at Loyola University Chicago School of Law and her undergraduate degree from Ohio Wesleyan University.
La Shawn K. Ford
La Shawn K. Ford was elected in 2007 to the Illinois House of Representatives representing the 8th District. Focused on social justice and disparities in employment, education and the health care system, he consistently advocates for increased access to financial resources and institutions for marginalized communities and promotes the value of education among students in his district He graduated from Loyola University Chicago, where he played basketball and earned a bachelor’s degree in education. Before becoming a legislator, Ford taught social studies and coached basketball in the Chicago Public Schools.
Juan Salgado
Chancellor Juan Salgado has dedicated his career to improving education and economic opportunities in low-income communities. Under his leadership, City Colleges of Chicago has become Chicago’s most accessible higher education engine, serving over 66,000 students. He has driven initiatives to increase student success for Black and Latine populations and is a key workforce partner in the development of the quantum and advanced manufacturing industries. Salgado first earned an associate degree from Moraine Valley Community College before receiving a bachelor’s, master’s and several honorary degrees.
Marie Lynn Miranda
Marie Lynn Miranda became the 10th chancellor of the University of Illinois Chicago in 2023. A leader in
geospatial health informatics, she is also a faculty member in both the Department of Pediatrics and the Department of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science. As chancellor, Miranda engages with the Chicago community to address health and educational equity, partnering with the corporate, nonprofit and government sectors to provide opportunities to the UIC community. Chancellor Miranda trained at Duke University and Harvard University; she is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Tim Killeen
Tim Killeen is the 20th president of the University of Illinois System, which includes universities in Urbana-Champaign, Chicago and Springfield. He took office in 2015. He has helped lead a surge of growth across the state’s flagship university system, including record-high enrollment and increases among in-state and underrepresented students. A leading researcher in geophysics and space sciences, Killeen champions research discovery that drives progress and job creation. A native of Wales and U.S. citizen, he received his bachelor’s degree in physics and astronomy and his doctoral degree in atomic and molecular physics at University College London.
Churning out tens of thousands of graduates each year, most of whom reside in Illinois, the three System universities — in Urbana-Champaign, Chicago and Springfield — and other institutions of higher education in the state are uniquely poised to develop the next-gen workforce that will meet the demands of tomorrow’s innovators and entrepreneurs. Feeding into this pipeline is the City Colleges of Chicago, with its rich history of bringing equity and opportunity to local residents who might otherwise be left behind.
Working in tandem with these higher education partners is a state government that is committed to opening doors to more investment, advancement and discovery. The state is also fortunate to have private investors and nonprofit leaders who are connecting the dots and unlocking economic opportunities by supporting promising entrepreneurs and innovators.
The panel agreed that the winning formula for Illinois right now is its new level of collaboration between these different parts of the ecosystem. With that comes a willingness and ability to foster innovation, entrepreneurship and workforce development, while addressing issues of equity and inclusion and other social and community challenges.
“It’s striking to me the extent to which the government, corporate and higher education sectors and the nonprofit community are thinking about how we build a bigger, stronger, better Chicagoland and beyond,” said Marie Lynn Miranda, chancellor of the University of Illinois Chicago. “There’s a deep, deep intentionality about it and also a clear sense of working together to build a more equitable economy. Those values bring a deeper commitment from all our institutions to try and make it come to life.”
University of Illinois System President Tim Killeen addresses the panel during the roundtable discussion at the Crain’s Chicago Business offices.
Efforts to spur the state’s economic engine have been there in the past, said Mark Tebbe, adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at University of Chicago Booth School of Business, but not as organized and synchronized as they are now.
“We finally started to see the fruits of our labor, and that’s led to this alliance of government, business, higher ed and research partners now rolling in a common direction, recognizing the contributions of each part of the ecosystem and the value that each brings,” said Tebbe, who has long been involved in work to link the public and private sectors in Chicago. He is chairman of ChicagoNEXT, a dedicated public-private effort to improve Chicago’s competitiveness in science, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship and a graduate of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
The administration of Gov. JB Pritzker has focused on ensuring collaboration across various strategic partners, according to Christy George, head of Intersect Illinois, the state’s economic development organization. This includes Brad Henderson, CEO of P33, a nonprofit focused on driving inclusive growth for Chicago’s tech sector.
The Integrated Bioprocessing Research Laboratory (IBRL) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is part of the Illinois Fermentation and Agriculture Biomanufacturing Tech Hub (iFAB), fueling innovation and job creation in Central Illinois.
Why Illinois and why now?
Illinois is emerging as a leader in quantum computing, a next-level technology that will be capable of solving problems that traditional computing can’t. The impactful technology promises to bring new jobs and investments to the region while shining a light on the state’s unique capabilities.
One of the largest wins for the state is the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park, which is planned to transform the former U.S. Steel site in South Chicago into a global incubator. The park is a shared venture amongst government, higher education, labs and research institutions, and businesses. It will be managed and operated by a university-related organization (URO) established by the System's Board of Trustees.
The project’s anchor tenant is PsiQuantum, a leading quantum computing company that plans to build the first quantum computer in the U.S. at the site. In December, IBM also announced it will partner with the state to create a new national quantum algorithm center at the park, making it the first Fortune 500 company to join the project.
The campus has the potential to turn the city and state into a dominant global player in quantum, according to World Business Chicago, the city’s official economic development organization. The massive undertaking is expected to generate 150 jobs in its first five years and at least $1 billion in investment. Eventually, it is projected to create up to 175,000 quantum-specific and quantum-related jobs in the state. Quantum’s global impact is expected to be in the trillions of dollars over the next decade. The state’s leadership sees the new campus as a launchpad for further research, innovation and investment.
For Henderson, Illinois is taking the lead in quantum due to several factors coming together. They include the groundwork laid by Argonne National Laboratory and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, which in 2020 were named National Quantum Information Science Research Centers by the U.S. Department of Energy.
“We’re leading because the University of Chicago and the Chicago Quantum Exchange — along with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Argonne and P33 — created the first entrepreneurial accelerator in quantum in the world. We’re leading because City Colleges is the first to emerge and say, ‘How do we build a workforce for this at the community college level?’ We’re leading because Intersect Illinois is invested in a Chief Quantum Officer to go out and tell this story,” Henderson said.
Instead of focusing on rankings and comparisons with other cities and states, Chicago and Illinois decided to focus on where we can authentically lead. Quantum is that answer and it has helped galvanize this coalition to work toward solving a big problem together, Henderson said.
The quantum revolution finds its Midwest home
Training is critical to workforce development and retention
“The No. 1 concern we hear from employers is workforce and whether we’re training them in a way our employers need,” George said. “We’re seeing that play out with the quantum campus. In response to this industry demand, curriculums are being developed that are focused on quantum technologies, advanced computing and microelectronics.
“The University of Illinois alone graduates more engineers than MIT, Stanford and Caltech combined,” George said. “All of our emerging industries need those engineers, which is why it’s critical for those industries to be at the table with higher education and the government playing a role too.”
At City Colleges of Chicago, these industry workforce demands have changed the way it prepares students for further education or a career.
“We had to orient ourselves to in-demand occupations,” said Juan Salgado, chancellor of City Colleges of Chicago. “We had to make sure that every one of our curriculums was relevant. And we’ve had to collaborate and solidify connections to our four-year partners to ensure this system works for all people. The level of growth that is possible is only possible if every member of these communities that we call Chicago or Illinois has true opportunity access.”
It’s important that people begin to realize that the talent companies are looking for exists in Chicago and Illinois, said Betsy Ziegler, CEO of 1871, the No. 1-ranked tech incubator in the world.
“I hear from companies that the talent doesn’t exist and from the students that the opportunities don’t exist,” she said. “Obviously, both of those things are false. We have a matching problem, which is a storytelling problem. The good news is, we have the supply and the demand and that gives me hope and energy because those things are very difficult to create.”
One of the things higher education is hearing from employers is that they want students to be better at working in teams and collaborating.
At UIC, that might mean taking a mechanical engineering curriculum and adding a team-building component that highlights working together to find solutions, Miranda said. Another method of preparing tomorrow’s workforce is through shared facilities with corporate partners such as IBM.
The Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park is planned to transform the former U.S. Steel site in South Chicago into a global tech incubator.
Illinois State Rep. La Shawn K. Ford (left) is a proponent of strategies to increase the value of a college degree in the eyes of students.
One of Henderson’s favorite quotes is, “If you want a great city, create a great university and then wait 100 years.”
“What’s crazy about Chicago is there isn’t just one great university. It’s at least a handful. And the data shows we’re particularly strong in science,” he said. “But what’s very clear is that the science of the last 50 years did not translate into science-based entrepreneurship.”
For example, though Argonne National Laboratory was instrumental in the development of lithium-ion batteries, they never capitalized on that work.
One of Henderson’s favorite examples of the tide turning is the Chicago Biomedical Consortium, which is a partner to UIC, the University of Chicago and Northwestern University.
The CBC is “an incredibly sophisticated SWAT team who can first understand what the market for science is. That’s a critical step,” Henderson said. “They have all this data that can pinpoint what science at what lab at what school is marketable. They then have the experience to approach that faculty member with a very specific investor who will fund that particular project.”
Since its founding in 2006, the CBC estimates it has contributed total economic input exceeding $3 billion to the Chicago economy.
“It’s an incredibly sophisticated, highly nuanced program that’s available to faculty across multiple institutions, and they’re building a bench of global venture investors while de-risking the investment for them.”
Chicago research universities leaning into entrepreneurship
When it comes to bringing Illinois talent back to Chicago from other states, Ziegler sees challenges in creating enough senior-level roles, particularly in the tech sector.
“If they come back to Chicago and that job doesn’t work out for them, there isn’t an immediate equivalent job necessarily available,” Ziegler said.
The solution is to help grow these startups and growth companies, helping them scale and stay local, Ziegler said.
“We also need to bring more jobs from Microsoft to Illinois, more from IBM, Salesforce and Google, because unless we can solve for that senior talent piece, it’s going to be very difficult to retain the talent we want here,” she said.
Ziegler sees entrepreneurship as the most important lever with respect to economic development and jobs creation. “Of the 40 million net new jobs created over the last few decades, nearly 100% of them came from small businesses,” she said. “So, we need these small companies that bring opportunity for wealth creation and neighborhood investment.”
Illinois schools are heeding the call of entrepreneurship. To date, about 25 universities and colleges have created entrepreneurship programs that are opening pathways for businesses. “They can test whether their ideas have legs before adding structure and launching them with the support of incubators such as mHUB, Matter, 1871, the Polsky Center and P33,” Ziegler said.
Promoting entrepreneurship: Another piece of the workforce puzzle
UIC Chancellor Marie Lynn Miranda (center) says, “We see graduates who prosper because they bring attitude, skills and resiliency that are incredible.”
For the last several decades, when you thought about working in Chicago, that meant coming to the Loop. When we needed to bring people together to solve a problem, they came downtown to do that. “What has started to change, that is really exciting, is to have the work, innovation and collaboration happen in different places,” Henderson said.
A good example of that is Xchange Chicago in the Grand Crossing neighborhood. Led by the Comer Education Campus, SDI Presence and P33, Xchange is working to create tech workforce hubs on Chicago’s South Side. Its goal is to leverage local expertise to overcome traditional barriers to upward mobility and wealth generation. It will do this by offering training, wraparound services and paths to apprenticeships and jobs, helping revitalize neighborhoods.
The Xchange is also a way to bring IT work back to the U.S. from other countries. “Corporate Chicago spends $40 billion a year on third-party IT services overseas,” Henderson said. “So that’s a center that could grow to thousands of people in a neighborhood that would have not been thought about in the past for this societal work together. And that’s the promise of the quantum campus, too.
“What makes these projects so interesting is that they are a way to solve so many things. They bring up housing questions, small business questions, education, access, etc.,” Henderson said. “We are moving the place where we do the work closer to where the confluence of opportunities and issues are.”
For Chancellor Salgado, what is critical with this project is the inclusion of people at a scale that matters to entire communities.
“As a city and nation, we’ve got to make sure that every young person and adult and place we’re in feel a part of the growth and opportunity, and actually have a pathway,” Salgado said. “We now have a story and a collaboration that is leading to the kind of equitable results that are meaningful to human peace.”
City Colleges of Chicago has seen large surges in enrollment from historically underserved populations of students, creating a vast pipeline for inclusion. Enrollment of Black males is up 35%, Black female enrollment is up 28%, while Latinos represent 50% of the student population overall at the seven city colleges.
The importance of doing more work in place
As seen with the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network — a collaborative model for scientific research that brings together leading research institutions — when universities collaborate, it brings out the best in each of them, Tebbe said.
The CZ Biohub is a collaboration between the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of Chicago and Northwestern University to develop new technologies for studying and measuring human biology.
This type of local cooperation can be duplicated on the international stage “where we can team up with universities in Wales or the U.K., Israel and India,” Tebbe said. “That takes a certain collaborative mindset that allows for the free exchange of thought leadership. That’s the mindset we need to continue to strive for.”
“Intellectual globalization is needed desperately to solve the critical social and technical challenges of our time, whether it’s energy or food production or global environmental stresses or conflict resolution. We’re all on this planet together,” said Killeen. “Through our Discovery Partners Institute (DPI), we’ve assembled a constellation of deep international partners.”
Based in Chicago, DPI is a key piece of the System'sbrazil strategy to collaborate across borders to meet common challenges and attract world-class tech talent to the city and facilitate investment in Illinois.
Other partnerships include Brasillinois, a new model for research collaboration between Brazil and the System, and a partnership with National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan. The programs aim to promote student and faculty exchanges and foster connections and joint research in areas such as climate and sustainability, public health, medicine and social inclusion with Brazil and in semiconductors, biomedicine and electric vehicles with Taiwan.
“Chicagoland and Illinois have an incredible calling card internationally,” Killeen said. “India is inviting us to build an elite engineering campus there, next to Foxconn, Apple and Google. We are engaging with Singapore and Mexico and many others.”
In June, the U of I System is hosting the Sustainability Research and Innovation Congress in Chicago, marking the first time the Congress is held in the U.S. Over 80 countries will be sending delegates to Chicago to talk about solutions for energy and air quality.
“We can ride this wind in our sails because we have everything in place in Illinois,” Killeen said. “We have the tools, the food, the energy. And now we will have the unbelievable bandwidth in the quantum computational setting. That’s a remarkable calling card.”
Delegations of government, higher education and industry partners from Illinois have also recently made trips to Scotland, London and Japan, George said.
“Those engagements, that collaboration, the MOUs (memorandum of understanding) signed — all of that attracts business to Illinois because the momentum is there and because there is a complete understanding of our priorities.”
Fostering international collaborations and knowledge exchange
As part of the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) Higher Education Task Force, Rep. La Shawn K. Ford (D-8th) has been a proponent of strategies to increase the value of a college degree in the eyes of students. This can be done only through the collaboration among federal, state and university leaders, he said.
The bipartisan task force spent two years assessing higher education in the U.S. before releasing its report in October 2024. The report found that ensuring the value of a degree for students is paramount. To do this, students need enrollment and degree options that offer opportunities for a career and solid earnings while completing a degree on time at a reasonable price.
Rep. Ford expressed gratitude to the higher ed leaders in the room for their work on looking at new ways to help students afford a college education and for the untraditional ways they are meeting learners where they are.
“One of the things that the City Colleges and high schools and public universities have done is dual enrollment, which can be a huge help in making college more affordable,” Ford said.
Colleges and universities that accept college credits earned while a student is still in high school allow students to enter as sophomores, reducing costs.
“That’s what you call making college more affordable, by being able to eliminate some of that up-front debt,” Ford said.
While Illinois is doing a good job with the AIM High and MAP Grants programs, Ford believes the federal government needs to offer more financial aid.
All three higher ed leaders agreed that federal funding was lacking.
“We could use help from the business community to stress the importance of federal support for students who face socioeconomic challenges,“ Killeen said.
They see the size of Federal Pell Grants as a problem. Currently, students can receive no more than $7,395 a year in Pell Grants.
“There’s not a chancellor or president across the entire United States right now who wouldn’t say the size of the Pell Grant is not meeting inflation,” Miranda said. For the City Colleges, Salgado finds the state funding for higher education “transformational” and believes the fully-funded MAP Grant program to be a game-changer. MAP was previously granted on a first-come first-serve basis, so the money dried up before some of the neediest students could apply for it.
“Now that it’s fully funded, this is probably the biggest equity play in higher education in the state.”
“We have to realize that the best investment that our state is making is in the human — and that is what we’re all talking about here today,” Killeen said.
Funding and policy support for college affordability, access
City Colleges’ biggest partner is UIC. They’ve had a transfer agreement for years. In 2024, they signed a new one that guarantees admission to UIC bachelor’s degree programs for students who attend any of the City Colleges of Chicago and have at least a 3.0 GPA. The U of I System has a broader program guaranteeing qualified students from Illinois admission to one of its universities from any other college or university.
These agreements help minimize the loss of credits and ensure admission to a four-year program for students who have historically faced barriers to higher education.
Both City Colleges and UIC “are trying to create an environment and nurture the individuals who are going to found new companies and develop new ideas,” Miranda said.
There was a time when universities would only talk about wanting their students to find their passion and pursue it, Miranda shared. But times are different now.
“I’ve become inordinately fond of these young people who come to our universities. I want them to get a good job, be able to afford their family, be residentially stable, have health insurance, all those things,” she said. To make that happen at a minority-serving institution like UIC, “we need to bring that intentionality to think about what jobs are out there and how do we prepare our students for them. This mindset shift aligns really well to this moment that our wonderful city finds itself in.”
Higher ed addressing social and community challenges head on
The mandate for the future of Illinois
One of the reasons Killeen is proud of the University of Illinois System is that its ethos is grounded in the public good. Likewise, creating prosperity for everyone in the state is the mandate of the tripod of members at the table — the public, private and government sectors — working together in alignment toward a brighter future.
“Creating a citizenry that can build human prosperity so that future generations can thrive is the challenge of our times,” Killeen said. “The challenge is real and it’s on our watch. We can’t wait for solutions to come. We have to create the solutions.”
Learn more about the University of Illinois System
University of Illinois System President Tim Killeen and a delegation of state and local officials visit the Illinois Center for Transportation in Rantoul, which promotes innovation and progress in transportation through interdisciplinary research.
"Twenty years ago, it was unusual to have faculty who came in thinking they’d like to get involved in entrepreneurial activity. Now it’s unusual to hire a scientist or engineer who doesn’t want to get involved.”
Marie Lynn Miranda, chancellor of University of Illinois Chicago
Mark Tebbe, adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at University of Chicago Booth School of Business
“We finally started to see the fruits of our labor, and that’s led to this alliance of government, business, higher ed and research partners now rolling in a common direction, recognizing the contributions of each part of the ecosystem and the value that each brings.”
Henderson led a partnership with a number of universities in the state, going after federal grants through the Innovate Illinois initiative. This work secured federal funding for two EDA tech hubs, George said, referring to the U.S. Economic Development Administration Tech Hubs program, which invests in regions that show promise in promoting global competitiveness in technologies and industries of the future. In 2023, two Illinois-based coalitions received EDA Tech Hubs funding: the Illinois Fermentation and Agriculture Biomanufacturing (iFAB) Tech Hub at UIUC and The Bloch Quantum Tech Hub, which is focused on quantum technologies and led by the University of Chicago-based Chicago Quantum Exchange.
“A lot of the momentum came from strong intentionality from the top,” George said. “We’ve seen hundreds of millions of dollars go into our higher education systems and community college systems. We have top research universities throughout the city and state. Now our focus has to be on how we invest in our six key growth industries with an eye on equity. How do we feed into them and listen to what industry needs.”
This work is about creating a platform that makes it appealing for young people to stay in the state, said Killeen. “This is about lifting all boats in the harbor, a new model of innovation with an intense effort to lift the public good that’s exciting and motivating to young people.”
There are also a lot of students who don’t want to start their own company but want to work for a small business.
“I think there’s a lot of opportunity to figure out how to connect those students with those small companies,” Ziegler said.
Schools also have different levels of investment in their tech transfer offices, which help move scientific and technical knowledge from research institutions to industry and then develop them into products and services.
“U of I is extremely talented at that,” she said. “And some of the other schools are trying to figure out how to really turn that engine.”
The other piece that we don’t talk about enough, Ziegler said, is the faculty at these institutions who have extraordinary insight, knowledge and industry connections.
“We’re not giving them as many platforms as I think we could to tell the world what they know,” Ziegler said. They have an opportunity to share their knowledge through 1871’s Innovation Labs, which the incubator describes as “disruptive, industry-focused experiences, designed to connect innovators and maximize chances of high-impact collisions.”
“This is a very different way we’re starting to show universities how to drive entrepreneurship,” Henderson said. “Our universities are moving away from, ‘We’ve got great science, teach us accounting,’ to ‘how do we become very sophisticated in quantum or biotech or batteries’ — and building real companies around that.”
UIC Chancellor Miranda sees a generational shift happening.
“Twenty years ago, it was unusual to have faculty who came in thinking they’d like to get involved in entrepreneurial activity,” she said. “Now it’s unusual to hire a scientist or engineer who doesn’t want to get involved.”
Miranda credits this to their exposure to entrepreneurship during graduate school or post-doc work, which makes them a fundamentally different faculty member and especially ripe for the kinds of activities that the CBC — or P33 or 1871 — are doing in Illinois today.
Introducing an entrepreneurial mindset is not just the domain of higher education and its scientific research. There are also many workforce development programs in advanced manufacturing in Illinois that begin at the high school level, George said. The programs partner students with industry, helping them gain valuable employment training, exposure and experience while they’re still in high school.
Christy George, president and CEO of Intersect Illinois
“A lot of the momentum came from strong intentionality from the top. We’ve seen hundreds of millions of dollars go into our higher education systems and community college systems. We have top research universities throughout the city and state. Now our focus has to be on how we invest in our six key growth industries with an eye on equity. How do we feed into them and listen to what industry needs.”
Brad Henderson, CEO of P33
“This is a very different way we’re starting to show universities how to drive entrepreneurship. Our universities are moving away from, ‘We’ve got great science, teach us accounting,’ to ‘how do we become very sophisticated in quantum or biotech or batteries’ — and building real companies around that.”
Juan Salgado, chancellor of City Colleges of Chicago
“As a city and nation, we’ve got to make sure that every young person and adult and place we’re in feel a part of the growth and opportunity, and actually have a pathway. We now have a story and a collaboration that is leading to the kind of equitable results that are meaningful to human peace.”
La Shawn Ford, Illinois State Representative (D-8th)
“One of the things that the City Colleges and high schools and public universities have done is dual enrollment, which can be a huge help in making college more affordable."
Tim Killeen, U of I System president
"Our university system has a legacy of tech innovation and graduates who went on to change tech history. Now it’s time to turbocharge all that — particularly with advancing tech platforms — with the human capital we have at scale."
While it’s critical to put all these efforts into boosting Chicago’s economy, we shouldn’t lose sight of the rest of the state, Miranda said. “We’ve got to look at it in totality because we can have a hugely successful Chicago but if the other 1,298 other communities are failing, they will drag it all down.
This means applying the same winning formula we have for City Colleges of Chicago to the community colleges throughout the state.
“Rural Illinois needs as much attention as the South Side,” Tebbe said.
The U of I System operates all across the state through programs like its Illinois Extension, the Prairie Research Institute, Illinois Innovation Network hubs, a network of clinics and a variety of other services.
“To have a thriving workforce that meets the challenges of this century we’re now unleashing, we must have a healthy population,” Killeen said. ‘We can’t talk about the opportunities and excitement they bring without talking about the need to lift everybody and provide opportunity for every community.”
City Colleges knows this harsh reality well as it confronts growing levels of housing insecurity among its students, 16% of whom are homeless.
“I have three colleges right now where 60% of the students are facing housing insecurity. And food insecurity is at the same levels,” Salgado said. “These young adults are making it through college even without a home.”
In response, the City Colleges have increased their wraparound services, expanding mental health and wellness resources while supplying meals for hungry students and housing strategies for the unhoused.
“If I were a company, these kids are who I would want to hire,” Miranda said. “I want to hire a kid who hit obstacles and figured out a way around them. And we see graduates who prosper because they bring attitude, skills and resiliency that are incredible.” “This is a very special time in our state and this type of nuanced conversation we’re having doesn’t happen that often elsewhere,” Killeen added.
Betsy Ziegler, CEO of 1871
"Of the 40 million net new jobs created over the last few decades, nearly 100% of them came from small businesses. So, we need these small companies that bring opportunity for wealth creation and neighborhood investment.”
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